[cheryl j]

When I get out of my car and go into the store, my border collie moves over into the drivers seat and places his paws on the steering wheel. When I come back, I say "Hey!, it's my turn to drive today," and he gets back into the passenger seat, the people in the parking lot laugh.

[Don_1]

Highly intelligent dogs are Border Collies and very much 'pack' orientated. It is said that if you don't show a Border Collie that you are the 'leader of the pack', it will try to dominate you.

[yor_on]

Yep, females overall are dangerous.

[Nizzle]

If any other creature did develop human-level intelligence I’d bet against it being a cold blooded reptile or a vegetarian : big brains are power hungry …

I always knew my sister was dumber than me ^^
Luckily my favourite animal is beef!

[steveculbreth]

Could it be Bigfoot, waiting in the wings, so to speak. Since there has been no habitat or direct evidence that they actually even live here. Maybe our space brothers are transporting them to the time of our demise. From all the reports, the Bigfoot hasn't been depicted as violent or bloodthirsty as we humans. Maybe they could become our better selves, which seems to be out of our grasp.

[damocles]

From RD (Reply #1 above):

If any other creature did develop human-level intelligence I’d bet against it being a cold blooded reptile or a vegetarian : big brains are power hungry …

Quote
It takes a lot of energy to run the brain. Even though it weighs only about 2% of our body weight, it uses about 20% of our blood supply and 20% of our energy
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/04/22/1090374.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience

That is unexpected good news! It seems to mean that I could use a few extra sudoku a day as a slimming programme!

[]

[Airthumbs]

There is currently no other form of life on the planet that is so destructive to all other life and the very planet we live on.  If something did replace us I hope they learn from our mistakes as we are generally not interested.

[CliffordK]

There is currently no other form of life on the planet that is so destructive to all other life and the very planet we live on.  If something did replace us I hope they learn from our mistakes as we are generally not interested.

It took about 10 million years for humans to evolve from monkeys, or 65 million years from the demise of the dinosaurs to the rise of humanity.

If something was to wipe out all humans (without destroying all we've built, or the entire animal kingdom), one might expect that it would take at least about 10 million years for us to be replaced.  It is doubtful that much will remain to tell the future of our trials and tribulations.

There is nothing innately humane about the animal kingdom.  Much of it is eat or be eaten.

Would a future dominant species be vegetarian, carnivorous, or omnivorous?